Professor Stephen Hawking considers himself an optimist, but you wouldn’t know it from some of the things he had to say in his latest interview.

‘Since civilization began, aggression has been useful inasmuch as it has definite survival advantages. It is hard-wired into our genes by Darwinian evolution. Now, however, technology has advanced at such a pace that this aggression may destroy us all by nuclear or biological war.’
Stephen Hawking

But despite his warnings of artificial intelligence and global warming sending us down a path toward total annihilation, Hawking maintains that he feels good about the future.

“All this may sound a bit doom-laden but I am an optimist,” he told The Times. “I think the human race will rise to meet these challenges.”

But how?

“We need to be quicker to identify such threats and act before they get out of control,” Hawking said. “This might mean some form of world government.”

That, however, could lead to global tyranny, the optimistic scientist added.

At any rate, these kinds of alarms have been raised by Hawking before. Last year, he made headlines when he spoke at Oxford University about mankind’s urgent need to explore space travel. He even offered up a timeline:

“I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet,” he said.

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